On the
front cover of the new improv release In Layers (FMR 2016) is a reproduction of a beautifully omni-dimensional painting
by Chris Ripkin, from which the album takes its title. Inside the jacket is a Ripkin quote which serves as the defining
aesthetic statement for the process envisioned in his artwork and, by extension, the music on the album. "Each
layer," he states, "[calls] for a new layer more transparent, until it gets silent."The very
creative and capable quartet holds forth on this freely improvised set of six segments in ways which translate freely
that visual activity into pure sound.This is a potent get-together of Onno Govaert on drums, Marcelo dos Reis on
acoustic guitar, Luis Vicente on trumpet, and Kristjan Martinsson on piano. They work together to realize varying
degrees of transparency and denseness, sound and silence.Readers of this blog will no doubt recognize several of
the names and may indeed be familiar with their improvising. This particular foursome is new to me as a unit, and so
perhaps also to many of my readers. They are united in their directional zeal, each a layer in the whole and each
segment also a layer.What impresses on this set is the care with which each member contributes his/her part: the
trumpet riding generally above in space, the guitar and piano in a sort of centering mode, the drums contributing
texture and periodicity with a pronounced flourish much of the time.Surely, this is collective improvisation of a
rarified sort, something FMR has been presenting to us so consistently, here yet further removed from anything expected
but nonetheless directly communicating a sort of synesthesiatic og of Ripkin's painting, spread out in time as
much as space.It is music made to contemplate, to run one's mental fingers over its aural surface, to
experience a musically deep listen inside of. This is music an improv connoisseur will be instinctively drawn towards
for its unrelenting eloquence. Those new or fairly new to ultra-modern improvisational music will doubtless find that
patience and persistence will open up this music for you.Explore this, by all means. -
gapplegatemusicreview.blogspot.com